As I untumbled all the locks, I had no doubt that her sudden appearance in the city was directly connected to the unreturned messages she had left on my phone since Jason became viral fodder the previous morning.
“Hey Mom,” I said as I swung the door open. “What are you doing here? Did you take the train?”
She was in the foyer before I finished my questions. “No, I had Jeeves the butler hire a goddamned limousine.”
“Why did you come all the way into the city?”
“Oh, please, Angela, you’re not the center of the universe. I have an appointment. A specialist. Figured I should at least stop by and see my daughter while they’re ripping off my Obamacare.”
For a second, I wasn’t sure what to believe. Was she lying about the doctor’s appointment to check on me, or had she been calling about a health problem, only to have her only child ignore her calls?
“What kind of specialist? What’s wrong?”
“I’m old,” she said, the words themselves serving as a shrug. I took her response as confirmation that nothing serious was wrong with her health. She was only sixty-five and had never referred to herself as “old” until my father died five years ago. The medical appointment was either fabricated or minor.
“I take it you heard about the incident with Jason and his student?” I led the way into the kitchen and popped a Nespresso pod into the machine, waiting for her to mock the absence of a real pot of coffee.
“So did he do it?”
“Of course not, Mom. He made an innocent comment about her being too young to get married. She took it to be a pass, and then everything got exaggerated.”
Mom took the tiny cup of caffeine from me, complete with an eye roll, then made her way to the refrigerator for a dash of the whole milk I keep around for Spencer.
“Even innocent comments can be loaded,” she said. “In my day, it was called innuendo.”
I did not want to think about my mother engaging in what she considered to be “innuendo,” but without prompting, she did me the honor of an impromptu performance. “You’re much too young to become a bride,” she said in a masculine voice. “You might be right, Dr. Powell,” she said in a ridiculous femme fatale delivery. “Why don’t you show me what I’ll be missing?”
“And . . . scene. ‘Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Tip your servers. We’ll be here all night!’”
“Angela, you’re smarter than this. I have no doubt it was a misunderstanding, but misunderstandings don’t happen when a situation is black and white. They only happen when there are shades of gray, when there could be two different versions of the same damn thing. What did Jason do with that girl?”
“Nothing, Mom. Nothing happened.”
She took a sip of the coffee that, from the look on her face, still wasn’t to her liking. “Are the two of you—okay?”
“Mom, please.”
“A man his age has certain needs. I know you don’t like to talk about it—”
“Jesus, Mom. I am not having this conversation with you. Jason and I are fine. I can’t believe you are blaming this on me. Do not make this about me.”
By the time she reached for me, my hand was trembling as I slammed a fresh purple pod into the Nespresso machine. “You can always come home if it’s too much. He’s already been pushing you to the brink.”
Other women would be proud of Jason’s accomplishments. But my mother knew that, as much as I didn’t want to be yet another cog in the East End service culture, I never wanted a spotlight either.
“I don’t need to come home, Mom. Colin hired a lawyer for Jason and says everything’s going to be fine.”
“Maybe so, but that’s why I’m here, okay? You need to take care of yourself and Spencer. The two of you come first. If Jason made this mess, he can deal with it on his own. I’ve seen how these people blame everything on anyone else—”
We spent the next twenty minutes arguing about whether Jason could be clumped in with “these people,” during which she invoked several examples of what she perceived to be Jason’s sense of entitlement. When I couldn’t take it any longer, I asked her whether she had a doctor’s appointment or not.
“Yes, I have an appointment, like I said.”
“Is it something serious? Can I come with you?”
She carried her ridiculously tiny Nespresso cup to the sink, rinsed it out, and rested it on a dish towel on the counter. When she turned around, her broad, flat face was filled with a smile. “My appointment is for a manicure, and you’re coming with me. And Jason’s going to pay.”
“Well, that sounds absolutely lovely.”
“I’m serious, Angela—if he fucked up, he really does need to pay.”
I told her once again that everything was going to be fine. She didn’t look convinced, but stopped pressing the point for the time being. “Look on the bright side: the last thing you wanted was him running for office. Doesn’t seem like you’ll be needing to worry about that anymore.”
I shook my head and smiled, but part of me realized she had a point. Assuming this crisis passed, Jason would have a good reason to stay out of the public eye for a long, long time.
15
The woman was probably in her midthirties, with straight, shoulder-length dark hair and full lips. Dressed elegantly in a simple long-sleeved navy dress and heels, she glanced around nervously, as if she knew how out of place she looked.
Corrine rose to shake her hand and gestured toward the chair next to her desk.
“You’re the detective in charge?” A civilian clerk had helped the woman find her way to Corrine when she showed up at SVU, asking about Jason Powell. “Are you still investigating that case with the intern?”
“I can’t comment on that, I’m sorry. Do you know something?”
The woman shook her head.
“So how can I help you?” Corrine asked.
The woman looked down at her hands folded on her crossed legs, obviously contemplating something. When she finally spoke, she looked up to make eye contact. “Six weeks ago, he raped me and I did nothing. Today he came to my house and offered to pay me a hundred thousand dollars if I promised not to say anything. I assume he’s afraid I’ll come forward, now that someone else has.”
“Okay, let’s go talk in private. I’m Detective Duncan, but you can call me Corrine.”
“I’m Kerry. Kerry Lynch.”
II
Kerry
16
Jason’s attorney worked fast.
Within thirty hours of her leaving our house, a left-wing gossip site ran the photo I found of Rachel Sutton kissing her fellow graduate student and intern, Wilson Stewart. Beneath it was the picture she had posted days later, showing off her engagement ring. The website had blurred her face, but the comments that followed repeatedly mentioned her full name, now easily searchable online.
By that evening, an entirely different narrative emerged. One website ran a quote from Rachel’s fiancé, saying that he was “hurt and confused” when he saw the picture of Rachel and Wilson together. More helpfully to Jason, the fiancé told a reporter that Rachel had never mentioned her complaint against Jason, and that she only called him about it after the news went viral. When asked whether the couple was still engaged, the fiancé said, “I doubt it.”
The fiancé wasn’t the only man distancing himself from Rachel. The following morning, Wilson appeared on New Day with none other than Susanna Coleman to confirm he had a “brief and casual relationship” with a fellow intern—still officially unnamed—that developed after a night of drinking on the rooftop bar at the Standard Hotel. “She told me the first night we hooked up that she thought Jason—Dr. Powell, I mean—was ‘sort of hot.’ I got the impression that she was into him. A lot of the students are. But he lets it be known that he’s happily married.”
Making every attempt to appear objective, Susanna asked Wilson, “But to be clear, you can’t say for certain what happened that day in Dr. Powell’s office, c
orrect?”
“I didn’t see it with my own eyes, but I’ve never known Jason Powell to be anything but a professional, inspiring mentor. As for the complainant, she’s sweet, but she can be dramatic, and sort of hypersensitive. She has a tendency to blow things out of proportion, so . . .”
The trail of his thought was the perfect moment for Susanna to thank Wilson for his time and cut to a commercial.
The message was clear: Don’t believe a word she says.
An hour after Susanna’s interview with Wilson, my cell phone rang. It was from the 631 area code, Suffolk County. I hated that area code.
“Hello?”
“Is this Angela?”
“Who’s calling?”
“This is Steve Hendricks.”
His first name sounded weird. Years ago, when he was part of my regular vocabulary, we called him “Hendricks” or “the Detective.” I didn’t say anything.
“I . . . I saw the news about your husband. I don’t know how I can help. But if I can—”
I hung up, then hit “Block this Caller” for good measure.
When Jason and I were in bed that night, I asked him if Olivia had questioned his intern, Wilson, about whether he had ever mentioned those boxer shorts to Rachel.
“She decided it was better not to reveal that detail, since it’s not public yet.”
“But shouldn’t we find that out?” As things stood, that photograph of her kissing Wilson had been used to make her look promiscuous and not for any other reason.
“I think Olivia preferred Wilson’s statement as it was, especially that part about my being hot.”
“Sort of hot,” I corrected. “I don’t understand why she wouldn’t have at least asked him about it in private.”
“Because that would be giving him information he doesn’t currently have.”
“Would that be so bad? I mean, Rachel could have seen something. You said you were tucking your shirt in when she walked in.”
“But the police don’t know that. She made it sound like I was flashing her or something.”
“But maybe she did see more than you thought?”
He rested the book he was reading on his chest and looked at me directly. “I’m just glad this looks like it’s over. Aren’t you?”
“Of course I am.”
“Okay, then.” He kissed me and kept reading. As I closed my eyes, I wondered where Rachel Sutton was and how she was feeling.
17
Corrine was waiting at the counter for her lunch when ADA Brian King’s number appeared on her cell. “Duncan,” she said.
“So did you watch it?”
He had called her yesterday to see if she’d seen a kid named Wilson Stewart on New Day. Apparently he was one of Jason Powell’s interns and had had a fling with Rachel Sutton. Corrine had informed him that she had an actual job that kept her from watching morning television, but she’d find it online when she had time.
Now that she had watched it, she told King that she didn’t think it changed anything. “You said from the start the case was impossible, plus it’s a misdemeanor at best. Kerry’s case is the one that matters now, right?”
The media winds had shifted in Jason Powell’s direction in the last two days, but Kerry Lynch would prove harder to discredit. She was the vice president of marketing for Oasis Inc., one of Powell’s clients. According to Kerry, Powell was flirtatious during the course of their work together. When he walked her back to her hotel room after a business dinner six weeks ago, he made an advance. When she rejected him, he suddenly grabbed her, threw her down on the bed, and bound her wrists together with his belt.
For King, it wasn’t enough. “I said Rachel’s case was impossible to prove, on its own. I want to put these two charges together and argue that it’s part of a pattern.”
“And you can still do that.”
Kerry may not have called the police immediately, but she did take photographs of the red marks on her wrists. She also had the presence of mind to hold on to the DNA, placing the skirt and panties she’d been wearing during the attack in a plastic hotel laundry bag. She had handed Corrine the bag as if it contained hazardous materials. “His—well, you’ll see. It’s on there. I was so sick afterward I started to throw it away, but I didn’t want the maids to see. This bag has been stuffed in the corner of my closet ever since. Maybe some part of me knew I should hang on to it.”
On the other end of the line, King was still venting about yesterday’s New Day interview. “I’ll bet you a thousand dollars that Powell gets that kid whatever hedge-fund job he wants when he graduates.”
Behind the counter, a guy with arms the size of milk gallons called out Corrine’s name and handed her a takeout bag, already beginning to spot with grease.
“Where are you?” King asked.
“Getting lunch.”
“Where?”
“Lechonera La Isla.”
“I don’t even know what you just said.”
“Best chicharrón in the city.”
“Okay, you’re making up words now.”
“I like how you own your whiteness, King. It suits you.” At the register, she fished twelve dollars from her purse, enough to cover lunch and a healthy tip for the jar. She continued the conversation outside as she began the short walk back to the precinct. “Do you have a subpoena yet for the hotel?” Powell had attacked Kerry after walking her back to her room at the W. Surveillance video wouldn’t show the actual assault, but the footage might at least place Powell inside a hotel room with the complainant.
“Yeah, I sent it over to their general counsel this morning. I’ll e-mail you the contact info so you can follow up. I also subpoenaed his cell phone records.”
“Sounds good. And, oh, the preliminary screening of the clothes Kerry gave me confirmed the presence of semen. We need a warrant to swab Powell.” A quick oral swab would give them the DNA they needed for a comparison.
“I don’t know. The case is weak. She didn’t report it until six weeks later,” King said.
Corrine did her best to keep her voice calm as she tried to explain the flaw in his logic. “The whole reason you leaked Rachel’s complaint in the first place was to see if other victims—ones who never came forward—might contact us. You were looking for a pattern. Bill Cosby. Trump. That gym teacher last year in Queens. Men who do this once, do it often. But now, after that worked and led us to Kerry, you’re holding it against her that she didn’t come forward earlier?”
“I want the case to be better.”
“Most rape survivors don’t call the police. And Kerry has a good explanation. She knew how important Powell’s work was for her company. And she didn’t think anyone would believe her given his squeaky-clean image.”
“You don’t need to give me the Sex Offenses 101 lecture, Duncan, but I’m the one who has to convince a jury. And it doesn’t matter how the real world works—in court, jurors don’t like victims who wait almost two months to call the police. Not to mention, she met with Powell in person—at her house—the same day she accused him of rape.”
According to Kerry, Jason had insisted on meeting with her alone after Rachel’s complaint against him hit the news. Kerry agreed to meet him at her home because she did not want her coworkers to overhear whatever he had to say. He offered her $100,000 to sign a nondisclosure agreement regarding the attack at the hotel. She told him that she wanted to think about it, but went to SVU instead.
“I’m not asking you to go to trial yet. We just need the DNA swab.”
“Except judges aren’t immune to media attention. They’ll want to know his side of the story.”
“He already lawyered up.”
“That was about Rachel, not Kerry.”
“Well, if he invoked about a misdemeanor, he’s going to invoke on a rape charge.”
“We won’t know until we ask. At the very least, the judge will see we did some legwork before asking for a swab. Maybe you can word your questions as if they’re r
elated to Rachel. By now, he probably thinks he’s in the clear on that.”
“But he invoked as to Rachel,” Corrine argued. “I’m only allowed to speak to him because there’s a new allegation.”
“Let me do the lawyering, okay? You’re not required to notify him of the new charge. Tell him Kerry Lynch’s name came up in your investigation, something low-key like that. See how he responds.”
“Now you’re telling me how to do my job?”
“Fair enough. Enjoy your chimichangas or whatever.”
“Enjoy your turkey sandwich on whole grain.”
“Please tell me that was a lucky guess.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, smiling, as she hung up.
18
As each hour passed, I could almost feel the rest of the world caring less and less about Jason and whatever it was that intern may have said about him.
Jason’s attorney hadn’t gotten an official assurance that he wouldn’t be charged criminally, but she said that wasn’t unusual. You either got charged or you didn’t.
Rachel had stopped coming to work, as one would expect, but it had been three days since the news broke, and she hadn’t filed a formal complaint with the university or done anything else to pursue the matter. The three remaining interns—including Wilson Stewart—told Zack that they assumed Rachel was embarrassed that her complaint had spiraled so out of control. The dean had not asked for any further meetings with Jason after their initial conversation about the police report. Jason hadn’t lost any clients. He had even managed to record an episode of his podcast without mentioning the scandal.
By the time I finished cleaning up after dinner, it actually felt like the incident might be in our rearview mirror.
In retrospect, I must have felt like we were safely back into our normal life, because I believed Jason when he told me that I had no reason to worry when the police knocked on our door that night.
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